Who is Julian of Norwich?
Julian was a Christian mystic in 14th Century England. She lived as an anchoress--a vowed religious person rooted in one place, living next to one parish church--providing spiritual guidance and prayer for those under her care. We actually don’t even know her real name; she was referred to as Dame or Lady Julian of Norwich because she was the anchoress at Saint Julian Church in Norwich. She is best remembered for her powerful and insightful Meditations, the oldest extant book written by a woman in the English language.
WHY HAVE WE CHOSEN A SPIRITUAL GUIDE AS THE NAMESAKE FOR OUR FARM?
“Be a gardener.
Dig a ditch,
toil and sweat
and turn the earth upside down
and seek the deepness
and water the plants in time.
Continue this labor
and make sweet floods to run
and noble and abundant fruits
to spring.
Take this food and drink
and carry it to God
as your true worship.”
This quote from Julian speaks to the fundamentally spiritual nature of putting your hands in the earth and growing food. We have chosen this work because through it we can seek the deepness, the depth of satisfaction and well-being that comes from using our bodies and minds to create and produce something truly valuable, feed our friends and neighbors, and play a restorative role in our ecosystems and communities. We hope that our farm can be a place where noble and abundant fruits spring forth from everything we do.
JULIAN ALSO USED OTHER METAPHORS RELATED TO FOOD, MOST NOTABLY THE HAZLENUT:
“And in this he showed me a little thing, the quantity of a hazelnut, lying in the palm of my hand, as it seemed. And it was as round as any ball. I looked upon it with the eye of my understanding, and thought, ‘What may this be?’ And it was answered generally thus, ‘It is all that is made.’ I marveled how it might last, for I thought it might suddenly have fallen to nothing for littleness. And I was answered in my understanding: It lasts and ever shall, for God loves it. And so have all things their beginning by the love of God.”
We are facing many challenges as a society as it relates to our earth. Sometimes it can seem overwhelming, as if nothing we could do would have any impact. But we would do well to consider Julian’s hazelnut. Although it may seem impossibly fragile, or that our efforts are impossibly small in comparison to all that is, the earth is good, strong, and resilient. It wants to regenerate, to be restored, if only we will humbly engage with her as partners in that healing. On our farm we try to live in that hopefulness. It is this fundamental hopefulness that Julian is most known for, as her most famous quote makes clear:
“All shall be well
And all shall be well,
And all manner of things shall be well.
”
At Julian of Norwich Farm we are glad to have this anchoress as our guide as we seek to grow food with love and by love believing that indeed all shall be well.